Testimony Concerning Science
Education
To The US House Committee On Scienceby Shirley M. Malcom
Director, Education And Human Resources Programs
American Association For The Advancement Of Science

Before the House Committee on Science in Washington, D.C. on March 17, 1999

Mr. Chairman & Members:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate
in these hearings focused on issues in science education raised by the Ehlers
Report. The report, which represents the culmination of a wide ranging nationwide
discussion, rightly points out our national interest in scientific and technical
education in view of its importance to our workforce, our economy and the needs
of our citizens. It is important to take stock and ask ourselves what is the extent
of our needs in these areas and how well are we going about meeting these needs.
Last year the Congress approved legislation, later signed into law, that raised
the ceiling for the number of H1-B visas to permit entry of additional highly
skilled workers needed especially by the computer and information technology industries.
(Chronicle of Higher Education 10/23/98, p. A32) Companies have been finding it
extremely difficult to identify, recruit and place the number of employees that
they need, who possess the requisite mix of skills, and are available for the
job growth being experienced in those industries. In addition to the short term
solution of raising the ceiling on immigration a strategy was put in place to
collect fees to be used to support the education of more U.S. citizens to address
the longer term issue of growing a human resources base sufficient for our country's
future workforce needs.

In the interim student enrollments and degrees
in computer science and engineering have been in steady decline. The jobs for
college and graduate trained computer scientists and engineers have increased
faster than our rate of production of these workers despite the strong demand
being seen in computer and IT fields for some while. Scientists, mathematicians,
and engineers are a small but vital component of our workforce and our failures
to respond to the need to grow this segment must be viewed with alarm. Here are
good jobs with high salaries and excellent career potential. Are students unable
to respond to the demand because of inadequate earlier academic preparation; unaware
of the jobs because of inadequate career counseling; dissuaded because of uninspired
teaching, inadequate instructional infrastructure or weak connection between these
jobs and their academic preparation? It is essential that we determine where the
barriers exist to producing adequate supplies of the personnel that we need if
we are to sustain the economic growth and competitive edge that the United States
enjoys in computing, telecommunications, biotechnology and other such fields.

As other nations follow our lead into knowledge
based industries their own citizens will be less likely to come to the U.S. for
graduate education and less likely to remain to fill our workforce needs. Importing
highly talented people is not an optimal long term strategy to address U.S. human
resources needs.

As our business, service, regulatory, transportation
and other systems have become more technically based and scientifically connected
the need for advanced scientific, quantitative and technical skills has diffused
out into many other areas of the workforce. As rightly pointed out in the Ehlers
report we need technicians as well as scientists, engineers and mathematicians
to support SME functions in the workplace. But our lawyers, judges, pilots, air
traffic controllers, legislators and business people increasingly need the knowledge,
concepts and ideas of science, mathematics, engineering and technology as well.
So too do the service men and women who must defend our country as they use and
maintain tanks, planes, ships, trucks and weapons, or detect the presence of biological
and chemical toxins. Those who monitor the safety of our water supply and our
food, who track infectious diseases, who keep us healthy, who fill our prescriptions,
who care for us in hospitals and nursing homes all need a much higher level of
SMET knowledge, concepts and ideas.

There are few professions that have been left
untouched by the scientific and technological revolution in which we find ourselves.
Yet we send too many into this revolution unarmed, lacking the knowledge, skills
and understanding they need to do the Nation's work, to earn a living now and
for the long term.

Earned Bachelorís Degrees, U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents

1989

1996

Engineering (all)

66,947

63,066

Male

52,160

47,623

Female

9,715

10,681

Underrepresented Minorities

4,805

6,974

Computer Science (all)

30,963

24,405

Male

19,901

16,093

Female

8,927

6,132

Underrepresented Minorities

3,742

3,784

The Needs of Citizenship

We regularly allude to the idea of science,
mathematics, engineering and technology for citizenship. But I believe that it
is essential that we ground this notion in some concrete examples so that we all
understand the stakes. How does the public respond to issues of nuclear power
vs. coal generated power or genetically modified plants or animals? How do we
have discussions about personal or family health choices without fundamental understanding
of human biology? How do we handle threats (real or imagined) to our children
from an Internet that they can navigate where we as parents cannot? How can we
exercise our responsibilities as voters or members of a jury? What happens when
DNA evidence is presented and our jurors have no clue about how to interpret competing
arguments of scientific experts? These concerns strike at the heart of our family
responsibilities and our democracy. I fear that we are being led to a legal system
that depends on people being uninterested, uneducated or confused by science based
evidence, a frightening threat to our system of laws.

America Responds

The issues raised here are not new ones and
the solutions that have been presented in the past are still relevant today. We
must educate all students to much higher levels in science, mathematics and technology.
We must tackle the challenge, no matter how difficult of re-education of the adult
population who long ago left K-12 education. We must develop broadly based nationwide
scientific and technical capacity for the long term. This means that resident
in every state we must have public health, agricultural, transportation , statistical
and other science and technology capabilities to ensure that the distributed nature
of our data collection, reporting, controls and regulation do not jeopardize the
interstate nature of our interactions, as people, food, water, air and services
flow across state boundaries.

We must address the basic educational needs
of all our people 34 the needs of those who will become SMEs as well as of those
who will encounter SMET in other work. Common to all these ends is our compulsory
education system. But we do not have a common system; we have 15,000 systems,
locally controlled and autonomous. These systems must perforce act on behalf of
our national needs for an S&T prepared workforce and technically prepared
defense system.

Those of us in the science community have recognized
the need to provide guidance and tools to these independently operating systems
so that the core ideas that are commonly needed will be locally adapted and delivered.
AAAS developed Science for all Americans in 1989 as a statement of these learning
goals in science, mathematics and technology and Benchmarks for Science Literacy
in 1993 to guide the teaching of core ideas across the grade span. The National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics developed mathematics standards in 1989, and
have recently revised these as Principles and Standards for School Mathematics,
a Discussion Draft. The National Academy of Sciences published the National Science
Education Standards in 1996. We now also have emerging technology standards developed
by International Society for Technology in Education. We as scientific, mathematics
and technical societies have no power or authority over school jurisdictions.
We have hoped to influence states and localities by the quality and thoughtfulness
of our work, openness of our processes and wide range of sectoral involvement.
We can only urge districts towards rigorous standards that can support our national
need for a next millennium workforce and citizenry. AAAS has developed other tools
to assist districts as they assess the quality of their textbooks or of their
efforts to promote learning for all student groups regardless of race/ethnicity,
socioeconomic status, sex or disability.

In March 1999 the National Science Board (NSB)
issued a very important report Preparing Our Children: Math and Science Education
in the National Interest. The report recognizes that "it is both possible
and imperative to develop national strategies that serve the national interest
while respecting local responsibility for K-12 teaching and learning." The
NSB offers four recommendations that promote student achievement in mathematics
and science urging that "stakeholders must develop a much - needed consensus
on a common core of mathematics and science knowledge and skills to be embedded
consistently in classroom teaching and learning."

I was a member of the task force that generated
this report in the wake of the release of the TIMSS reports until the end of my
tenure on the NSB in summer 1998.

While I no longer serve on the National Science
Board I want to add my support to the recommendations they made urging a nationwide
conversation and effort at developing consensus around standards and core learnings
in science, mathematics and technology. The report points out that one in three
students will move and thus change schools during their elementary and secondary
years and that mobility alone argues for our making room for some common understandings
within our traditions of local control.

I support local control of schools, and I also
support national standards. I believe that the 15,000 roads that lead to the production
of our Nation's human resources must to be guided by a road map that at least
helps us understand the destination. Our standards must guide the way toward local
derived and globally competitive curricula. I would add a quote from a recent
NSB hearing by Board Vice Chair Dr. Diana Natalicio: "One of the things that
I try to talk to people in school districts about..is that while we are all respectful
of their desire for local control, they seem to forget that they are not preparing
their graduates to work or live locally. We are talking about a global competitiveness,
and it seems very hard to square those two."

Higher Education

Increasingly post - secondary education is an
essential element needed for our workforce. It will increasingly be 2 and 4 year
colleges & universities that will deliver the last formal science and math
courses that most people ever take. The view of science and mathematics, the concepts
and ideas people take away with them, will be conveyed by the faculty of our higher
education institutions. It is essential that we remember this, especially as it
relates to the preparation of our K-12 teaching workforce. That 21st century teaching
workforce will be the vanguard who will shape the national workforce of 2020.
I hope that our foresight is 20/20 in recognizing that they must be provided the
best that we can offer the knowledge, skills and ideas delivered using appropriate
technology and other equipment. For it is they who ultimately keep America the
world's great economic power.

The Congress has recognized the need to support
the development of this teaching workforce as well as to help current teachers
in a process of education and renewal. We must retain the integrity of programs
established to ensure our national capacity in SMT education; when our health,
our defense, and our quality of life are at stake we must insist on accountability
for the use of resources that support education in the new basics of science,
mathematics and technology.

Teachers for the 21st Century

Most of us who have gone on to pursue study
in science, mathematics or engineering fondly remember those teachers who inspired,
challenged and encouraged us. They expected much from us and gave much to us.

Most of my teachers in high school were actually
prepared in the subjects that they taught us and, in those post Sputnik years,
they had opportunities for summer study to extend and support their learning.
Despite lack of equipment and facilities they approached science and mathematics
teaching with eagerness. One cannot help but contrast this with the current situation
where teachers at the elementary level have had few post secondary opportunities
to study and learn the science and mathematics they are expected to teach, possess
minimal access to technology or the training needed to incorporate it as a teaching
tool; where high school teachers of science & mathematics may likely be teaching
out of the field of their major or minor with inadequate professional development
opportunities, instructional equipment and laboratory facilities. The technology
that will be integral to students' work & lives may not yet be an embedded
part of their learning environment.

Teachers shape the future as they prepare our
children. And who will shape the teachers for the new roles they must face?

Have we considered the role that teachers must
face in preparing the students in SMT for the various roles and jobs they will
assume in life? They must manage to understand and incorporate an expanding content
base. In addition we ask them to respond to the psychosocial and other needs of
their students, manage classrooms with too many pupils and too few resources while
teaching too many hours a day with no time for preparation, planning or learning,
little respect and low salaries.

The kind of SMT savvy teachers that we want
for our children can earn twice or more their salary in another sector. Our local
approaches to developing new teachers for the 21st century has meant that we all
face shortages, potentially resort to emergency credentialling of underprepared
persons and to raiding the neighboring district.

We need a massive mobilization to ensure the
production and movement of highly qualified SMT teachers into our schools from
a nationally available pool. Just as Ms. Goddard, Mr. Smoot and Mr. Burton gave
me my mathematics and science base so too must we provide for our children and
grandchildren the teachers who can guide, motivate and inspire learning.

The Education of Citizens

The overwhelming majority of the U.S. population
are beyond the direct instructional reach of our schools and colleges. Yet they
need SMT information as well. While their jobs might provide or require specific
training, reawakening their sense of wonder, excitement and inquiry, making them
open to learning about science, mathematics and technology means that we must
employ strategies that attract them to SMT, helping citizens see the science and
mathematics that may have become commonplace. Museums, science centers, Internet,
television and radio have taken on some of this work as have libraries.

But these media are still not reaching broadly
across all populations. We at AAAS determined that we must be unabashedly opportunistic
in sharing science with the public. We have sought to find topics that compel
attention, such as health, and to use these in multiple formats to impart science
context as well as immediate information about the health topic34 be it the science
of addiction or the ethical, legal and social issues related to the Human Genome
Project. We have been willing to deliver this message where ever people are or
where they come together. So we have had efforts based in all sorts of places
such as in libraries, churches and senior citizens facilities. We at AAAS review
trade books, video material and software as a way to guide teachers and librarians
to the best among those available. Science Books & Films (now SB&F and
SB&F Online) has been the source for identifying quality books and materials
for over 33 years, born as a post - Sputnik strategy to improve science learning
by directing us to excellent science resources.

Another AAAS project has helped to stimulate
the production of science communicators, assisting students of science, mathematics,
engineering and medicine to gain journalism experience through placement in summer
internships at print and broadcast media outlets. Roughly half of the more than
300 Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellows produced in the 25 year history
of the program have taken these skills into their work as scientists often while
assuming increased roles interacting with media. The other half have shifted careers
to become full time communicators, including such luminaries as Dr. Michael Guillen
of ABC, Richard Stone, and Joe Palca of National Public Radio. They reach the
public through the media, bringing science stories into our homes and offices
34 even informing our commute.

We find ourselves with a system of problems
that, if taken together, threaten to overwhelm our ability to keep pace with the
knowledge and skills needed to manage and maintain the technologically based society
and economy we have created. Our need to import talent has been necessitated by
our failures to develop talent, by expanding the talent base for technical and
scientific fields. We have systematically underdeveloped women, minorities and
persons with disabilities as crucial human resources for computing, engineering,
telecommunications and biotechnology fields among many. We need only to consider
the extent of disruption predicted if we fail to address our Y2K problem to realize
how embedded our technology and science have become 34 power grids, ATMs, missile
warning systems, 911 systems. Like fish we do not see the water.

Nor do we see that the science and technology
in our lives that we so take for granted force us to pay more serious and systematic
attention to traditional notions that we have enshrined that may no longer serve
us well. Our communities have expanded beyond our neighborhoods; our collaborators
as well as our competitors may reside on the other side of the globe. Our reach
may extend even beyond our planet.

Addressing the needs for global stewardship
and sustainable human development, meeting our personal health needs as well as
those of our families, being informed citizens and wise jurors, all compel us
to a heretofore unseen need for scientific and technological savvy.

Source: Tthis speech came from a US Congress webpage that no longer exists.

Copyright information: Gifts of Speech believes that for copyright purposes, this speech is in the public domain since it is testimony before the U. S. Congress. Any use of this speech, however, should show proper attribution to its author.